Deploy to Device

Hint: Deploying the APP from QtCreator the first time you’ll get this info:

YES will delete the installed work app and install your APP. If installing fails, then probably the APP is marked as ‘required’ – ask your admin to set the APP as ‘optional’ to be able to delete the APP.

If all works well, the APP (named PegelMeter) will appear twice on your device.

Run as Work App

QtCreator starts the APP without –user which always will use the default one (0)

I’ll open a bug report and request to add a Variable USER_ID so this can be placed inside .pro and added to adb start command by Qt build process.

Starting the work APP from Terminal you’re loosing the log output inside QT Creator. Workaround could be to log from adb or to use an extra tool.

This will give you the logs using adb:

adb -d logcat libpegelMeter_x.so:D *:S

A special tool gives you some more comfort filtering the logs. For OSX I can recommend LogRabbit. It’s easy to filter out the logs from your APP.

External Tool

As we have seen, Build and Run the APP starts the private APP. So you have to stop and close the private APP and then start the work APP from Terminal.

To make this easier I added this to External Tools in Qt Creator:

I checked Output: Show in Pane – but nothing is printed. Probably I forgot something to tell External Tools that APP output should be visible in Application Output Pane. As long as this doesn’t work I’m using LogRabbit (see above)

My example and sceenshots are based on ‘Managed Accounts’, which is the easiest way. If you’re using Google Domains then it’s much more complex and for each User you need a dedicated Work Google Play Account. The newest BlackBerry UEM 12.6 supports ‘Managed Accounts’.

To activate a Android device for work (‘Managed Account’), you’ll receive an eMail from the Admin (email address, password)

BlackBerry UEM Client

Please download the BlackBerry UEM Client APP from Google Play

Open the UEM Client and enter email address and password.

Configure your profile.

Device will be activated:

Play Store for Work

Automatically some work apps will be added. Here you see the Play Store for Work (left) and the usual private Play Store:

Please open the Play Store for Work. If you don’t have used a Google Mail address (different from your personal Goofle Mail address) for activation, it can happen that you get an error:

try to switch off / on the airplane-mode or restart the device to see your work apps.

Your Work APPs

in this case there’s one app available – the app you sent to the admin:

Two APPs (Work, Private)

Install the APP as usual and you’ll get 2 APPs: one as private, one as work app:

we only need this app as work APP, so you can delete the private one.

Now as your APP exists as a work APP you can deploy updates from Qt Creator and use the work profile.

Android for Work Statusbar

Open your work APP and take a look at Android statusbar:

you’ll always see if the current APP is a work app and you’ll also see if currently there’s a secure connection to server (VPN)

Secure Connection

All your Work APPs will use the secure connection. There’s also a second Browser: Chrome for Work. Opening sites from Chrome for Work or accessing URLs from your Work APP always goes thru the secure connection – this means those URLs will be opened behind the firewall same way as if you’re sitting in your office using the Intranet. Data used by Work APPs is encrypted and secure out of the box on transport and also on your device.

Secure Boot

Using BlackBerry Android Devices there’s some extra security built into the hardware. Those devices cannot be rooted.

BlackBerry and Android Devices ? You have read that there will be no more Devices built by BlackBerry ?

Yes – BlackBerry finished transition from hardware to software. BlackBerry licensed Devices to partners, but verifies security. First new device was presented by TCL at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona: keyONE with Android Nougat 7.1 – three more new devices will follow. BlackBerry Android Devices always get the monthly security updates for Android – per ex. Security Patches from march 2017.

It’s up to you or your customers how many levels of security they need. Android for Work is the first step, using devices with secure boot the next one.

Samsung does something similar with Samsung KNOX and Samsung devices, but fails with monthly security updates.

If you’re developing mobile business apps sooner or later customers will request to debug, build and run on managed devices. This blog post is focused on Google for Work | Android Enterprise (aka Android for Work).

Google for Work | Android Enterprise

There are different ways to run work applications: devices may only contain work apps or private and work apps are installed together. From my experiences in most cases there are private and work apps together on devices. Read more about EMM (Enterprise Mobile Management) and different scenarios here.

For stages 2 and 3 your device must be activated as Android for Work device or you should request a device to test on from your customer. This is the only way to get access to data servers behind the firewall – in most cases there will be no URL you can use from outside. One device can only be activated as work device for one server (BlackBerry UEM).

It’s highly recommended to test your APP as Work APP – the admin can forbid features (Bluetooth, NFC, Camera, …)

To manage apps your customer has to use a Google developer account to be able to publish apps through Google Play for Work.

Multi Android Package Names in Manifest

Attention: you must change the Android package name to enable your customer publishing the app to Google Play for work because the package name from stage 1 is already connected to your own Google developer account from Beta testing.

Also your Enterprise Customers can have different environemts for dev, test, production with different Google Developer Accounts to get a specific Play Store for Work for each environment. This means you must build releases for up to three or more different package names. Changing the package name manually in Android Manifest is not so comfortable. You can have a dynamic way following this blog article.

Best would be Qt Creator supports this directly using variables in .pro. see QTCREATORBUG-17863